The Day I Burned Down a Small Museum (a thrilling true story!)

A lot of people come up to me every day and ask me what we as Americans can do to keep pace with Britain. And who can blame them, really? Anyway, my answer is always the same: we must devise our own version of Cockney rhyming slang. Sometimes I follow this with a dramatic, "before it's too late," but I won't now, because I do not want to insult your intelligence, because I am tired, and also because it has done no good thus far; like always, the obstinate masses have not risen at my command to do my bidding, and once again, I must be the one to step forward and get my hands dirty. So here goes:

Burl - The hives, an allergic reaction consisting of severe, itching welts on the skin, as in, "I've got a case of the Burl." Derived from Burl Ives, singer of such hits as "Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Lavender Blue".

Willow - Defenestration, the act of pushing someone out of a window, as in, "This was no accident--this was Willow!" Derived from willow tree penetration, a regional pastime that involves both penetrating things with a willow tree, and pentrating a willow tree with things.

Electroplating - Curly Fries, a delicious, high sodium potato dish, as in, "Yeah, and gimme a order of them Electroplating. And a Coke. Super-jumbo." Derived fron Hurleyize, a word (named after the man who discovered its meaning) that relates to a specific, minor step in the process of zinc electroplating, hence the the slang term, "Electroplating."

All right, maybe that'll get the ball rolling. To be honest with you, writing these is making my head hurt. Just too much work. Besides, we're light years ahead of those island-dwelling fucks when it comes to lots of other important stuff, like slickness and basketball shoe technology. Seriously, this is a slick fuckin' country. We're just a country of good-looking, confident slicksters. My gut tells me that that's worse than being a country full of happy, humble peasants, but my head tells me that it's probably not. At least not terribly not. At least, I hope so anyway. But I see these fucking people, you know? Mostly in elevators, with pretty much never any sort of interaction, but they just make me sick, you know? Well, it's really very few of them, to be honest with you. It's really just the loud ones. Which, to be honest with you, are really few and far between. Maybe just once or twice. Still, it makes me so mad, I'll do something like say, "Yeah buddy!" in a put-on, smarmy voice as I drive away or as the elevator door is about to close. Maybe not loud enough for them to hear me, but possibly so.

Thinking about it, though, I do tend to get all disgusted every time I have to make a delivery to a talent agency. Maybe it's because, ever since early childhood, I've always reserved my most bitter scorn for those monsters. Fie on all of them, really, if I may be so bold. After talent agencies, I think I'd have to go with law firms next on the list of work environments that bring me down. Law firms always seem to have an almost entirely unearned air of importance about them, a gravity, if you will. Even the low rent ones exude the tangy aroma of an office suite filled with dudes who all think they're geniuses. The more impressive ones seem like all their lawyers think they're not only geniuses, but artistic geniuses, and presumbly all run with a Hollywood crowd.

As for the Hollywood crowd, I'm really seeing low level people. I go to the top places, but in the really top places, all I'm seeing is the mailroom. The loading dock, if I'm lucky. So, if I'm getting any inside glimpse of show business, it's more likely to come at places like small production companies and weird little satelite offices of major studios. Production companies are sort of more annoying than infuriating. There's something pretty desperate and pathetic about most of them--all of them, in a way. From the posters of the movies they've made that they all display prominantly in their reception areas, it seems like most of the ones I've dealt with have had approximately 1.3 projects that have both hit the light of day and pierced my consciousness (to one degree or another; most of the ones I recognize I barely recognize). But it's almost always something bad, and none of the posters I've seen has yet to make me want to rush out to Video City (which, as far as I know, is not a real place, anyway).

Also pathetic and depressing are some of the more tangential Hollywood players, like dubbing services and lighting rentals and the like. There's this one camera rental place where I know they think they're in show business. Then again, there are record stores like that, too, so maybe it deserves a slight break. Whatever. Anyway, the point of all this is that I've been stting here, writing nonsense for the better part of an hour, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna miss tongiht's startling episode of "House." (Which, by the way, I watch, even though I'm kinda sick of it. Don't get me wrong--Hugh Laurie's one of my all time fave raves. Seriously, I've read his thriller novel, "The Gun Seller," twice. He's an extremely funny, extremely smart man, and I'm honestly kind of thrilled to see him having this kind of success in America, but the show is so fucking formulaic, every episode ends up being pretty much the same. They've tried to turn it into more of a soap opera by throwing in these shitty plot points (throughly mean-spirited black billionaire buys hospital, immediately decides to make House's ouster his A-Number-One priority, and is gone after maybe three episodes. And now they've decided to bring the bland, sporadic, quasi-flirtation of House and the boring doctor chick to a boil. Sexy!

I don't know. There's definitely something there. It's an interesting show, but it hasn't been able to sustain itself, and it's only gonna get worse (or at least samer) if they don't figure out a way to turn it into a compelling soap opera.

Hmm... Speaking of "compelling," I seem to have rattled on a bit back there. Sorry 'bout that. I'll try to make up for it by not writing anything else until June or so.